Getting to Know the 2024 AAMI BMET of the Year

Keri Stephens
Hi, welcome to the HTM 24/7 podcast. I’m your host Keri Stephens. For this episode, I’m joined by a good friend of the podcast Chace Torres, aka the Bearded Biomed. To talk about a really big award he recently won, AAMI and GE Healthcare’s BMET of the Year award. In our July/August print issue, we’ll do a deep dive into the award, but we want to talk to Chace about this award and kind of, you know, see what’s been going on in his life. So thanks, Chace. Thanks for joining me today.

Chace Torres
It’s good to see you, Keri, it’s been too long.

Keri Stephens
It’s been way too long. I know, like at least over a year, and that is not okay. So Well, first of all, congrats on your award. That’s a big deal.

Chace Torres
Thank you. But it surprised me to be honest. Yeah. You know, we do the work without the thought of recognition for the most part. I mean, it’s always nice to be awarded. But, you know, it’s one of those things that only one person gets it a year. So I can think of many people that are probably just as if not more deserving. So it’s an honor to get it?

Keri Stephens
Well I have to say, I’m not surprised you got one. I mean, you’re doing so much for the industry, so much advocacy to me, you seem like a no brainer. So congrats again, though.

Chace Torres
Thank you, it’s, I’m looking forward to being in Phoenix. It’ll be my first time in Phoenix too. So from what I hear, it’s going to be a pretty cool event, there’s going to be doing a lot there. So besides getting an award, there are many other things there. So people have an opportunity to, you know, really get to see the show. And this couple of things that me and AAMI have brewing together.

Keri Stephens
So I would love to hear about that. So we know you, you’ve been on the podcast many times, but I don’t think people really know your backstory that much. We’ve really just talked about big topics. So I want to take a deep dive into you. Because we will have a full length feature on you and the July/August issue. But I want to do this for now and just learn more about you here. So to start, how did your experience in the US Army shape your career in biomed.

Chace Torres
And not only just shaped it, it laid the foundation. The career started in the army, the opportunity to learn the craft of biomed and really get entrenched and troubleshooting and learning different modalities and the documentation importance of it. And just learning how to be a technician. And by the time I had gotten out of the military, I had had all those intrinsic values. And, you know, skill sets built into me that most people probably on the outside in the civilian sector going through biomed more than likely won’t be able to, you know, just pick up on their own, operating under duress, working with limited resources. You know, there’s the, there’s the added stress factor of doing everything, no matter what the job is in the military. That’s just something that can’t really be taught. It’s more of an experience thing. So it has served me quite well, especially nowadays. So

Keri Stephens
Especially nowadays. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your podcast because personally, I think your podcast has been so influential on reaching the new biomed and, you know, this seasoned biomed and just bringing them together and really giving a platform to an industry that people may not know about. So what led you to start your Bearded Biomed podcast?

Chace Torres
The podcast started with two things, one with the want of people to stop asking me, what is a biomed? Because if they knew about the profession, they probably want to ask that simple question. But as we all allude to, the question exists, because the majority of people within the United States and outside even don’t know what the biomed technician profession is. So there was that aspect of it, and everybody I met across the field feels my pain in that they’ve all had to answer that question several times to even family members. The other aspect of that was I needed something to spark the will to want to put myself out there because when I first started, I was not good at public speaking, I wasn’t comfortable in front of a camera, which is why the podcast started audio only. And that initial spark that drew everything towards me was one, I’ve been a frequent follower of Justin “Better Biomed” for years, you know, I was already aware of what he was doing. I appreciate what he did. And then I saw somebody get into the podcast space, which was surreal, with MMS. And her podcasts really inspired me to think, you know, I like how she’s doing it, but I would do it a different way. And those two things just kind of mixed together and pushed me to do it.

Keri Stephens
That’s awesome. And I, personally, I’ve, I love listening to your podcast myself. So I give you all the credit for that. And another thing you recently got is you wrote a children’s book, let’s talk about that. And just, what, why did you decide to write a children’s book? And can you talk to me more about it?

Chace Torres
The children’s book was because we didn’t have one and to fill the void of what’s not there, and I don’t mind being the first to do something. So that’s, that’s always a legacy thing for me as well. You know, after I found out that I was going to be a father. That just more that was the spark to drive me to do it, the will to want to do it was already there. And, you know, it’s a simple way to outreach to kids to, you know, break it down in a simplistic way of what our day to day is. It’s become very beneficial for my fellow biomed’s out there for them, for their kids, to see what mom and dad do. And, you know, I’ve been sent pictures of them reading them for bedtime, I’ve been sent pictures of actually doing read alongs in a kindergarten to three, you know, class setting of all the kids sitting there and the book being read to him like, it’s, it’s pretty amazing. You know, I hope that it continues to just get larger and larger in scope. But for the initial year, year and a half, it’s been out. It’s done pretty well. And I’m okay with that.

Keri Stephens
Honestly, I mean, the fact that you have used your platform to really just branch into so many new ways, the podcast, the book, I mean, it’s pretty incredible, because I don’t think people, obviously they think it’s the biomed field would think that these would be any avenues that people would really go for. But you’ve done it. So bravo to you.

Chace Torres
Thank you.

Keri Stephens
So I want to get into your thoughts of the field as a whole. As you know, you won this award, and you’re obviously influential in the industry. So what are some things that are keeping you up at night about the industry as a whole?

Chace Torres
Okay, you could have cut it halfway and I would say my son is what’s keeping me up at night. It’s just I think there is noticeable progress, or at least I would hope. So. When it comes to people entering the field a little bit. I’ve had outreach from many people that have either listened to my show, or listen to Brian’s or found better biomed or, you know, resources to AAMI, 25×7 or, you know, all the different resources out there. And they’re like, Yeah, I want to do this. And from what I can tell, too, there also seems to be more of an influx of more demographics. So different races. I keep seeing more and more women get into the field, which is encouraging as well. And, you know, when I talked to Danielle, my last episode, I asked, When do you think you might do another survey? And she said, Well, probably every five to seven years. So we’re coming up on another, another run of their survey. And I’m very encouraged to see what those numbers are going to outline because that will give us a snapshot of everything that has been done in the past five years. Are we making progress? It’s very hard to see the progress. So I guess the things that would keep me up are, is the work that we’re putting in, you know, myself and everyone else and people in industry that are trying to put themselves out there to generate hype. about the field and acknowledgement of it, is what we are doing actually working? I guess that would be the thing, which, you know, I’m encouraged to think that it is just based on personal interactions. But you never know. And that’s, that’s the What If?

Keri Stephens
Especially with you writing a children’s book, I mean, you might not know now the impact because it could be in 20 years, 15 years, you know,

Chace Torres
That was to address the, you know, AAMI is doing a lot of great things. But by the time we’re going out and speaking to high school students speaking to possibly, you know, career changers and all that they’ve pretty much made the decision on what they’re going to do already, you have to reach out to younger audiences. Going to high schools, which I’m actually planning on doing later this month. is fantastic. But if we’re not at least putting the little suggestion that, Hey, there’s this cool job out there that exists when they’re younger than we’re not going to see those changes that we need to see.

Keri Stephens
Right? Yeah, I know, for my son, he’s about to be six, he says he wants to be a fixer when he grows up. So I will definitely read to him your book and show him kind of, you know, another fixer, a medical equipment fixer. So

Chace Torres
I think for your son, too. I would probably, for folks out there that have kids that want to tinker and put stuff together and fix things. Look up HTM workshop, facilitated by Brian Bell, he puts together a lot of different kits for kids to create circuit boards and create their own patient sim and soldering kits. Like he has a lot of these that he’s invested his time to actually create for folks. And it’s a really good way to get your kids into that technical aspect really early. How old’s your son?

Keri Stephens
He’s about to be six.

Chace Torres
Okay. I would think if not now, probably the next couple years, he should be within that age range to where he could, you know, dive into some of that, but I would just check it out. htm workshop. I’ll give you Brian a little plug there. Because I think it’s really cool what he’s put together for kids to learn off of?

Keri Stephens
No, that’s wonderful. Okay, so any parting thoughts? Anything people need to know what’s next for you, just give us a little teaser.

Chace Torres
The first thought is, I think I speak for a lot of people. And Keri, as always, you and your team do an amazing job. And I would encourage folks to subscribe to 24/7 If you haven’t already. I’ve been a subscriber for years, and you guys have a lot of valuable information, which, you know, it’s always good to be plugged into what’s going on. You know, there’s a lot of different media sources out there. And you know, we’re not all doing the same thing. We’re not capturing all the same thing. So it’s good to have a healthy mix of, you know, what’s available out there for folks. So that’d be one thing, and I appreciate you having me on here. And we need to, you know, revisit and relink more often. So the first year of fatherhood has been interesting. You never, you know, I was active duty for quite a while. So I was pretty used to not sleeping. And this is a different level, I will say that it’s hard to, you know, keep up with the industry sometimes. I will say folks probably will notice that my episodes are not dropping as frequently as often just because I just have a lot going on. And I’ve always been of the mindset that I would rather do a quality over a quantity product. So even though I’m not dishing out episodes every week, that is because I’m not just going to put out trash. I have some encouraging changes coming to where there’ll be more frequency of episodes, the format of beard balm is actually going to be changing here very soon. I just recently did a survey to a lot of the people that follow me and people want to have more of a format change so I’m gonna give them what they want. There will still be interviews from here and there but uh, we’re going to take this to two points Oh, so stay tuned in, keep an eye out for that. Other than that, that’s pretty much what I have going on. So I’ll be at AAMI. I’ll see you there. Any of you folks that are listening? I will also be at the Omaha symposium for the biomed symposium out there in August. I’ll be doing a keynote speaking out there. And yeah, I’m still seeing what other speaking engagements I’ll be doing later this year. But for now, that’s probably the most upcoming thing.

Keri Stephens
Well, thank you so much Chace. As always, it was great to have you on and to our listeners. Thank you so much. And be sure to check out www.24x7mag.com for the latest industry news and insights. Thank you. Take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai